Nature Boy
by NotHardlyCharlotte
Summary: "There was a boy, a very strange, enchanted boy. They say he wandered very far, very far, over land and sea. A little shy, and sad of eye, but very wise was he..."
1. Prologue

IMPORTANT AUTHOR'S NOTE PLEASE READ AND BEAR WITH ME!

So, I'm breaking my own rules here, but I'm excited for this story, at the same time I'm wary. I've thus decided to post the prologue and the first chapter before I've finished the story, in order to gauge whether you like it or not, and whether you like Evie or not. If overall I get a good response, I'll continue writing, but updates will not be as regular as they would've been if I'd finished it first. Woe is me.

**Warnings: **These will probably apply to most if not all the chapters. Be prepared for cursing, adult references (more like jokes, but the occasional implications of sexual situations), violence, lots of angst, an obscene amount of fluff, pop culture references from the 50s, my appalling grammar, ect...

Spoilers: (duh) If you haven't read the manga, don't read unless you want to spoil it for yourself. I have not read the books, so if anyone has some information in them that might make for interesting plot development later on, please feel free to let me know.

Disclaimer: blah blah blah is this even necessary? bluh bluh don't own bluh bluh

Quick note: This occurs approximately a year and eight months after the beginning of the series. Nothing that I can remember at the moment has changed in the series, except for Evie's existence. She was not involved before this story. Okay I'm done.

* * *

Prologue

Her feet were truly horrific. Which was saying something, as she'd participated in more than a few hunts over the years and had seen the dredges of the afterlife. She'd have to sell her peep-toes if she wished to avoid terrifying the masses.

"Freaking pointe," she mumbled to herself, attempting to glare her deformed toes into a more natural state. She sighed. It wasn't working. Hm. Strange what her mind distracted itself with when she was bored.

"They'll be with you in a minute," the elderly maid informed kindly, ducking her head into the foyer and offering a smile before skipping on her merry way. She just barely refrained from huffing like a spoiled brat. One would think the people she considered family would be in more of a hurry to see her, especially given that she hadn't been able to contact them in almost two years.

Evie glanced around the cavernous room with only mild interest. After all, she was practically raised in this house; she knew every painting, every chip in the wall, every vase that had ended up inexplicably floating at some point.

"Evie, dear," a sweet, achingly familiar voice called, and she looked up. Her irritation vanished as quickly as it came, replaced first by joy. Luella, her aunt for all intents and purposes, stood in the archway, smiling.

As she drew closer, though, something cold crawled along her skin, and concern chased away the happiness. Her smile seemed wan, unnatural, the same flat grin worn by Noll in every picture they'd managed to capture. Strange because her smile was always half-contained, half-bursting forth like Gene's. Her pale blue eyes were empty. She'd always been a curvy woman, wide hips that never bore children, her face ever plump and rosy. But her body seemed drained of life, pale and sallow, cheeks tight and drawn. The walls in her mind pulsed with indecision. Feel what she feels, or let her tell.

"Aunt Lu," she greeted without a hint of worry, rising to her aching feet and rushing to the tall woman, letting her arms wrap around her thinned frame. Either Evie had grown (unlikely) or she'd lost about fifteen pounds. Her emotions pulsed along Evie's skin, unable to breach the walls but trying valiantly.

"How have you been?" she asked as she released the girl from a slightly prolonged embrace. Her voice, on second thought, was equally drained. The soft lilting accent, so different from her own unfading Welsh brogue, was unusually clipped. Like she was tired.

"I've been well, aside from my feet, of course. Three shows a night, five times a week for the past two years, does a number on the toes," she griped with a fluttering laugh, hoping it didn't sound too fake, "Where's Uncle Martin?"

"Here," the much deeper, smokier voice of Martin Davis declared, "Forgive me, I was entranced by the vision in white occupying my foyer."

His tone was the same cheeky, cheerful music she'd grown up hearing, fighting for space on one of the couches in the library as he read a ghostly myth. Probably not the most normal childhood, but the stories of death and pain were as whimsical as a fairytale to her, when read by that voice.

She tugged at the hem of dress and blushed childishly, as if she weren't used to compliments or men or any combination of the two. "Oh, don't even."

He chuckled warmly and drew her in for a quick but tight hug. "Never ask an old man to stop appreciating beauty."

"It's a good thing you're not yet an old man," she quipped, smiling. This was familiar, the banter and challenge of wits. She could deal with this. Not the haunted look on Luella's face as she watched her from the side.

He looked as if he wanted to argue, but rather he smiled, and put a hand on her shoulder. His gaze too turned soft and contemplative as he absentmindedly twirled a lock of her hair between his fingers. Evie frowned. Something pulsed from him too, as strong as Luella's, but she wasn't sure she wanted to know, if her curiosity was that callous yet.

"Are you reading me?" he asked, not accusingly, but she felt reprimanded nonetheless.

"Should I?" she challenged automatically, then hated herself for it.

He didn't answer. His eyes skipped behind her to his wife, brow furrowing momentarily, before relaxing into a jovial grin.

"Have you heard from your parents yet?"

Deliberate change in subject. Noll's favored tactic, when the topic threatened to be….unpleasant. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "No, they're still on their 'philanthropic retreat' in Sri Lanka. I haven't had much more than a few grainy, five minute conversations via satellite phone in over a year."

He pinched her nose playfully. "Well, have you spoken with Noll or Lin?"

"Lin has called me over Skype a few times, and I haven't spoken to Noll since the twins' birthday."

She didn't see Luella flinch behind her. Martin's eyes flickered from face to face uncertainly.

"Speaking of them, are they around?" She looked around the room as if they were hiding somewhere, ready to pop out and frighten her like they did as children. Well, Gene did. Noll only scraped his nose off the page long enough to point him out. "Surely Gene must be back from Japan by now."

A whimper sounded behind her, and Evie turned on her heels. Cold leaked in a steady stream from the quivering woman. It crawled up her arm, caressed her neck, slipped over her head like a scarf. Then a sharp finger of emotion stabbed at her mental walls, so suddenly she stumbled back with the force of it, trying to soothe the psychosomatic pain from her temple even as she reached for Luella. Why was she projecting?

"Oh Lord, she doesn't know," Martin said to himself, or maybe to Luella, but in any case he refused to look at her. The mask crumbled—she knew it was a mask now. Martin was a more talented liar than even the twins—and she saw how truly haggard he was. His eyes were very far away before he shut them, something glistening in the corner. _He's crying. _She'd never seen him cry.

There was too much uncertainty. She had to know. So she let a crack form, only to slam it shut again. Or she tried. _Loss grief sadness pain pain pain. He's gone he's gone he's gone he's gone. _Blue and grey and white and yellow, yellow, yellow danced in her vision, a sadistic swirl, a kaleidoscope of heartbreak. Only a glimpse, but it forced itself to the forefront. She fell to her knees.

"Is it Noll?" she asked first, because he was the reckless one. Not impulsive, but reckless. Her heart constricted in her chest. Such dangerous possibility.

Martin looked at her, the tear tracks shiny on his bearded cheeks, and he shook his head. "No."

She gagged. Her stomach was roiling painfully. _Please stop,_ she begged, unsure of who, who was dispersing their pain like a grenade. Her fingers shook. _Push them, _her mind begged of her, _push them to stop_. She couldn't. She wouldn't. She'd endure this.

"W-when?" She didn't ask how. It didn't matter. Luella whimpered behind her, fingers in her ear, demented singing to drown out the answer. _Please stop._

"Last year, in March. Noll found his b—found him about three months ago."

_So long. I didn't know. _"Why didn't anyone tell me?" Was it her own grief? Was it theirs? Had it even registered?

_Gene's dead. Gene's dead. Noll found him. He's—._

"Oh God, did Noll—."

"Yes. He felt it," Martin interrupted solemnly, soothing his palm over his face and clutching his chin. A nervous gesture born of anguish. "I thought he told you. Or at least your parents would."

Bile rose in her throat, unheeded, too much, and she lunged for the nearest plant. A bitter flood, but not so horrible as the energy clawing at her skin. She heard scrambling behind her, the brush of fabric along smooth marble. Someone sliding towards her.

"Darling," the voice preceded the touch of skin to her hand where it clenched the edge of the pot.

There was a shattering in her mind.

"Don't!" she gasped, wrenching herself away, but it was too late. _Gene hasn't called. Where is he? Mother, he'd dead. I felt it. I'll find him. I'll bring him home. Confirmed. I'm sorry, Mrs. Davis. A yellow sheet, the mineral scent of water, decay. My baby. My sweet little boy. I can't stop crying. Just end it. Noll's empty eyes, shut down, hasn't cried. Bring him back God, bring him back. I don't believe in you anymore but BRING HIM BACK. My son. My son. It hurts. Murder. MURDER. MURDER. _

"Don't touch her!" Martin shouted somewhere in her reality but she wasn't there anymore. She didn't exist anymore. She was little more than Luella's agony.

The foyer was filled with a hollow, moaning cry, like the heaving of a dying lung, echoing in the tall ceiling, reverberating along her skin until she didn't recognize it. The sound coming from her own throat.

Martin pulled his wife from the room. Distance was the only cure until she could rebuild her ruined walls, brick by brick, layer by layer. Gene had taught her how, Gene who was dead. Gene whom she'd never talk to again. Gene whom she'd never tease again. Gene who never said goodbye. She let the fact sink in, let her own grief mingle with the vestiges of his parent's. Hours later, when the twitching in her limbs had settled, when the layers of steel, bricks, and drusy quartz were back in place, when she scrounged enough energy to wipe the crusted vomit from the corners of her lips, she made a decision.

She packed her bags, kissed Luella on the cheek, shared a grave smile with Martin, and slipped a picture into her pocket. Within an hour, she was on a plane for Tokyo.

* * *

Poor Evie, my baby. The things I put her through. Anywho...

I'm also posting the first chapter, so refrain from making any hasty judgements on my child until you've read that. (Though if you don't like her now, you'll probably hate her then...)

If anyone catches any weird spelling errors or missing words and such, please, don't hesitate to let me know. I'm lacking a beta as of yet.


	2. Chapter 1

Thanks for sticking with me this far...

**Warnings: **Same as before

Spoilers: (duh) See prologue

Disclaimer: You know the drill...

Quick note: I've made Lin slightly younger than he is in the anime. I'd put him around 27 there, but for the purpose of this story, he's around 24. And while I realize his first name is Koujo, there is in fact a reason why everyone calls him Lin, even his love interest. ALSO, I'm editing this chapter so soon because I got a review (which has not shown up yet...) that it seems like Evie and Naru may be or have been together or had feelings for one another.

NO. LORD NO. Never even crossed my mind. In my head, they're more like siblings, even if Evie has a sort of flirtatious personality. Sort of like Bou-san asking Mai to marry him, or taking her out on 'dates'. It's all to get a rise out of him. Mai and Naru are just too adorable. It was hard enough breaking up Lin and Madoka, and normally I wouldn't but it seemed like an interesting plot development. Sorry, had to clear that up...

* * *

Chapter One

"Where is he?"

Mai wasn't entirely sure how this happened, but as per usual she decided to just go with it.

"My name is Mai. I'm Mr. Shibuya's assistant. Maybe I can help you," she managed to grind out in her rather broken English. Odd, considering she was in Shibuya and the only people she knew of who spoke the language fluently were currently hiding…well, _working _in the room next door. On the bright side, she sounded half-way polite. Her grasp on her explosive emotions was getting stronger.

"Where. Is. He," the woman growled deliberately, the slightest hint of an unrecognizable accent coloring her words. Curiosity warred with her increasingly flared temper. After all, she'd been napping innocuously when the door slammed open and this vibrant-haired _harpy _had violently squawked her way into the office. She wanted to know who the demanding stranger was. Mainly, she wanted to toss her onto the street.

Despite herself she could feel the…._colorful _words bubbling on her tongue. "I—."

"You shouldn't scream so. You might wake the dead." The air she'd gathered left her in a heavy rush and she whirled around to identify the source of that amused voice.

_No freaking way._

Lin stood in the doorway. Well, stood was too strong a word. He _leaned _against the doorframe casually, arms crossed, a gentle smirk on his lips. _I think he's been spending too much time with Naru. _But the laughter in his eyes was definitely all his own. _It's still weird. _

The woman's coal black eyes shot to him in fury, and almost immediately softened. The look was gone in a moment, replaced with something notably more _feral_. "Would you prefer that I scream another way?"

Now, she could only understand about half of what they were saying, but Mai knew people, could read their intent the way a bear read fear. For all intents and purposes, she knew Lin, even without his background, and knowing him she could say with utter certainty that never in their time as colleagues and friends(?) had she ever seen him act so warmly towards someone. Except maybe Naru. She might even go as far to say he was _flirting _with her.

_What the hell?_

He chuckled and turned to Mai, her confusion probably very evident. In Japanese for her sake, "Taniyama-san, this Evelyn Naoki, an old friend of mine."

_Naoki? She doesn't look Japanese._

"Forgive me," a new voice chimed in, sweeter with the more familiar language, but the inflection was the same as the angrier tone from earlier, "I let my temper get the best of me. It's a pleasure to meet you."

Naoki-san held out her hand and she stared at it, momentarily forgetting what exactly she had to do. Her skin was pale and luminous, and seemed to sparkle the longer the younger girl stared. Was she a ghost? But then she coughed delicately and Mai shook herself awake.

"Oh! I know what you mean. Naru likes to push my buttons." Her grip was loose and delicate, unlike John's firm and jarring shake that was apparently a Western custom. More interestingly, a jolt jumped from the stranger's palm to hers, so minute she wouldn't have noticed it had her focus been otherwise occupied. Mai's hand tingled, not unpleasantly, but she wondered still if she should inform Naru.

"Naru?" she asked, confused, if her head quirking to the side was any indication. She looked like a puppy, for a moment. A very elegant puppy in a mid-thigh white dress. A shiny black crucifix for a collar.

"Taniyama-san has named Oliver Naru. Short for narcissistic," Lin explained, though it was less robotic than it normally tended to be. He was still smiling, albeit his smile, the half-smirk-half-grimace that somehow looked warm and happy. She wanted to know more about this woman who could make a mountain move.

Naoki-san blinked theatrically to dispel her surprise. "Fitting."

"I thought so."

She watched them speak with what could be considered an unhealthy level of interest, but they were fascinating. It was obvious they'd known each other for a long time, even if she couldn't understand the majority of the language tripping from their mouths. They must not have wanted her to hear. Instead she honed in on the mystery woman's face. She wasn't Japanese, that much was clear. Her hair looked softer than Mai's, finer, and colored a shocking coppery-gold. It fell down her back in curls to her waist and she wanted to braid it. Her own hair was too short. She couldn't be older than Lin, maybe a year or two older than Naru.

She was beautiful (go Lin), but moreover, she was _familiar._

"_What are you doing?"_

_The frame clattered from her grip. _Please don't break._ It didn't._

"_S-sorry, Naru. I was just cleaning out this old desk and….." she trailed off, because he'd never had patience for excuses. The frustration she'd seen in his face retreated and he stepped closer, picking up the picture she'd so carelessly dropped. Avoiding his gaze, she lowered her head in shame. She had been snooping. Two years she'd worked here and she never opened the drawer in her own desk._

_He inhaled, and she prepared for the reprimand. "I'd forgotten that was here."_

"_I'm sor—what?"_

"_Where did you find this?" He didn't sound mad, only curious. Well, it was still demanding. _

"_I-in my desk," she stuttered, a habit she'd been working on breaking. It wasn't working. He nodded, but he was gone. His blue eyes were focused on the picture, skipping from point to point, no doubt analyzing the angle and the lighting, maybe avoiding the eyes she'd only caught a glimpse of. She remember the shape had been pretty._

_He turned his shoulder, a silent invitation for her to look. Without touching him, she still managed to invade his personal space._

_It was a girl. She was smiling, a soft smile that touched her eyes and made the deep black of them look less endless and more like crushed velvet. The cross around her neck stood stark against her pale skin. _

"_Who is she?"_

_For a moment he looked like Gene, his lips turned up warmly. "You remind me of her sometimes, when you yell at me."_

_As per usual, he avoided answering so skillfully had she been anyone else she would've fallen for it. In any case, she rephrased her question. "How do you know her?"_

_He sighed and put the picture face down on the tabletop. As he walked away, she thought he wouldn't answer. She would've been less surprised if he hadn't._

"_My parents." _

"Mai! I asked for tea twenty minutes ago." There were footsteps, but they stopped. She didn't need to move her gaze from the chatting pair to know it was Naru. If his restrained anger hadn't given him away, the cat-like tapping of his feet certainly did.

When she did look at him, though, she couldn't look away.

His eyes were wide, something that happened often in cases but only fleetingly. Now they were wide and seemed disinclined to regress to their normal state. His mouth had fallen open a little too, and if it had been anyone else (maybe Bou-san) she would've teased about catching bugs.

"Close your mouth, Noll," Naoki-san said playfully, maybe a little exasperated, but then her expression shifted, as if she remembered that she'd been angry, and she marched up to him with murder in her eyes. Mai's stomach was screaming. _Stop her._

"You bastard."

She felt like she should gasp, then thought better of it. Her life was already too wrought with complex, barely comprehensible melodramatics as it was. Plus she'd internally called him much worse, so it would be hypocritical of her.

"Evie," Lin warned, right foot sliding back to better his stance. Like he was about to fight something. Someone. He seemed unusually uneasy, at least he was emoting said unease physically, which was more than enough warning in her mind. The air around them was siphoned of warmth, cold seeping into her clothes and under her skin and she wondered if Lin's shiki were reacting to the tense atmosphere. Or maybe….

Naru was still, posture rigid as always but he was bent at an odd angle. Around him hovered a sort of film, wavering, but when she blinked it was gone, like those specks in your vision that disappear when you try to look at them directly. Could it be Naru? She remembered last time he'd used his powers, the same film and the clammy air. The resulting hospital trip. This situation now was too similar. If Mai didn't know any better, she'd say he was panicking.

_Stop her! _

Mai didn't figure it out in time. Before she could move, a hand shot out and cracked across Naru's cheek. He didn't awaken from his dazed state, in fact he seemed to sink deeper into that void, a red handprint pulsing angrily on his face.

Naoki-san recoiled, as if he'd been the one to slap _her._ "You didn't tell me."

Naru stared wordlessly, his mouth opening and closing, searching for words he'd never lost before.

"I found out _two days ago_. How could you?" Tears glistened at the corners of her narrowed eyes, but her glare didn't waver. "I loved him too."

"E-evie?" Naru stuttered. He actually stuttered.

_Who the hell is this girl?_

"Why didn't you tell me Gene was dead?"

* * *

Mai set each teacup down, careful not to disturb the perfectly brewed warmth inside. Steam curled in delicate, undulating swirls and she watched it, distracted, waiting for someone to move first. She hated moments like these, the suspension in anticipation, the reticence of stubborn people. They made her skin crawl and her impatience pique. The silence was too constricted.

Add the all too familiar pulse in her stomach, and Mai was writhing internally. There was something about Evie-chan that didn't sit right with her. The feeling was different though, not the cut-and-dry 'bad' or 'good,' but something teetering between the two. Something inherently good, creating evil. Something evil pretending to be good. _It's growing,_ the voice in her heart that wasn't really a voice insisted.

She really wished someone would speak.

Naru, as if accepting her unspoken challenge, claimed his cup first, letting the steam waft over his face before he took a bold sip, heedless of temperature. If it burned him, he didn't flinch. He never did.

"I humbly accept," Naoki-san muttered formally, tripping over her pronunciation slightly but nonetheless clear, before taking a tentative sip. Lin ignored his cup. As per usual.

Thus the floodgates were opened. Mai, not to be outdone, spoke first. "So, Naoki-san—."

"Call me Evie. Or Evie-chan, if the suffix drop is uncomfortable," she interrupted half-automatically. Mai smiled warmly, though it was lost on the pensive woman staring intently at the coffee table.

"Evie-chan, how do you know Nar-Oliver?"

A hesitant smile stretched her lips. "Call _him_ Naru. I know I will." Some of the tension seemed to melt from her shoulders, and she sat up taller, smiled more confidently. "As for how I know Naru, we grew up together." The look on her face turned soft, wistful. "Our parents are good friends."

Somehow, Mai couldn't picture them as children together, playing, teasing each other. It didn't help that she suspected Naru had never at any time in his life been a child. They just seemed too distant, too reserved to have shared a past. He wouldn't even look at her.

Then she thought maybe they were actually very close. Evie had slapped him, and that of itself was an act of intimacy. There was too much tension buzzing in the air for them not to have history.

"Are you…like him?" _Us, _she corrected in her mind. "A spiritualist, I mean?"

Evie's brow knit together in confusion, and she glance at Naru, who simply nodded, as if she would magically understand by the gesture. "Yes, you could say that."

_What? Another one? _

"I have what's called ESP-HE, or extra-sensory perception of human emotions. Otherwise known as empathy," she explained mechanically, like reading from a textbook. She seemed bored with the idea. Naru was suddenly watching her, smirking at her. _She's hiding something,_ the not-voice said, or maybe it was Naru's look.

"What does that…entail?" The words sounded too formal to Mai. Like she was speaking with a client, rather than the friend of a friend. Naru was already looking at her uncertainly from his spot beside her on the couch, though beside was a generous term. He managed three feet of space between them on a four foot couch.

Evie didn't seem to notice. "There are several different manners by which someone reads emotions. I tend to feel them on my skin first, but if I'm either abnormally reckless or the situation calls for it, I 'read' them, which really means I feel them firsthand. I try to avoid that. Sometimes, if they're strong enough, I see them as colors."

"Post-cognitive?" Something like pride layered Mai's voice. Lin gave her an impressed quirking of the lips from his seat across from her, not quite enough to be called a smile, but she cherished it anyway.

Evie hummed in assent. "Limited, though. In that case it's more like psychometry, but without the physical senses. My gifts exist more in the present. For example, at the moment, Naru is feeling, something he apparently does from time to time, a combination of happiness, guilt, and bewilderment." She paused, tilting her head pensively. "And now he's irritated."

Mai giggled behind her hand while blatantly ignoring the scathing glare sent her way by a visibly bristled Naru. When that seemed to fail, he turned his fury to Evie, who merely shrugged. _You asked for it._

"If we're done playing Twenty Questions, would you mind telling me why you're here?" he asked (demanded), pinching the bridge of his nose. Failing composure meant he was either tired or frustrated. Probably both. Mai pushed her untouched cup of tea towards him, and he took it without question.

"I was mad, I got on a plane, I bitch-slapped you. My not-plan has been for the most part fulfilled," Evie rattled off, smirking. She beckoned to him with that smile, challenged him. _She's worse than Madoka._

"I gathered that much," he deadpanned. Evie had enough sense to sober, hands twisted on her lap as the room fell silent. Mai wondered if she felt the confusion humming in the air, the irritation. If it crawled along her skin too. Probably more so. Emotions were not abstract to her. What a baffling thought.

"I'm going to pick up lunch," Lin declared in as awkward a tone as he could manage and turned to her, "Taniyama-san, join me."

Sometimes she wished he and Naru would actually ask questions. Then she could at least pretend to say no once in a while. Regardless, she rose to her feet and skittered after him, only pausing to wave goodbye. Naru wasn't watching her, not that she expected much in way of a dismissal. His eyes on were on Evie.

And they were sad.

* * *

He looked like a weather-eroded statue. One more storm and he'd crumble. Evie tried to recall if his eyes had always looked so flat, or if they'd quietly ignited. If his posture was that precise or if he slumped over a book. The door slammed shut, and his shoulders fell minutely.

She reached out, tasting the air around him, and searched his second skin for pores, cracks, gashes, _anything_ she could slip through. Long fingers probed haphazardly, uselessly. He didn't want her reading him. She_ needed _to.

Evie sighed. "Just tell me why."

His gaze was steady. Voice silent.

"You should have told me," she tried again. _Find the nerve. Pluck it. Hate yourself later._ Nothing about his expression gave him away. It was his eyes, the silent implosion, flickering to the right then to the left. Uncertainty was his enemy, but her ally.

"I didn't realize I was a chaplain," he said monotonously. Cold.

"Gene wasn't a fallen soldier and I'm not a faceless next of kin."

He should have shifted. He used to do that, when he was uncomfortable, too graceful to be called squirming, more a purposeful repositioning. She prodded further, sought what he felt because she'd never know otherwise.

"What do you want from me?" There was his shifting, from flat to teetering along the edge. His glare burned along her cheekbones. "An apology? I don't see the purpose."

"I should've heard it from my brother."

"I'm not your brother." She was expecting it, but it stung regardless. He was cruel when he was cornered. She was too. Something she'd learned from him. Or he learned from her. "Your parents told me." He flinched with his eyes. "I felt everything. Luella touched my hand."

Noll shut down. "I touched his shirt." No trace of self-pity, a statement of fact. Her gut twisted.

"I know." _I'm sorry._ She didn't even assure herself that given the opportunity, she would've taken his place. It would be a lie. His was a burden no one else could handle. Evie wasn't sure that _he_ could, not this time.

The fingers retracted from his mind to skim along his skin. There wasn't the sharp pulsing she'd felt from Luella and Martin, rather a slow undulation, a rippling. He had too much self-control. So much that he could diffuse his emotions throughout his body, feel them in every nerve, make them tangible and real and not the abstract _things _he had no hopes to understand. He could torture himself in the effort.

Evie felt sick with self-loathing. In her own grief, she'd ignored his. "Let me in."

He eyed her disgustedly. "Why? You already know what I feel."

"No," she insisted, her voice twanging with desperation, "No I don't know. I need to know. Show me."

A twisted sneer contorted his beauty. _I don't smile. Gene smiles. I sneer. _He was wrong, of course, but neither Gene nor Lin nor she could tell him otherwise. "You're pathetic."

"Maybe. Probably." Her stomach screamed at her. "Show me."

The sneer was gone, so suddenly she didn't see the transition, the slacking of his muscles into blankness. It was too old a look for an 18 year-old. When he spoke, his voice was the raspy droll of an old man. "No Evie." He looked at her with flat eyes. She could imagine a film glossing over the deep, clear blue. "You are not using me to punish yourself. Don't waste me like that."

_How poetic,_ she thought, before all connections snapped. Her mind broke. Her body slumped into the couch. She was suddenly very tired. They made their professions in death, but it seemed neither had been prepared to wallow in it.

"I didn't say goodbye," she said stupidly, sentimentally. They were useless words. No one lets go of someone so young, or anyone who dies, really. But the cliché was comforting, and right now she wanted nothing more than to curl up in a closet and sleep. Maybe a hug, but this was Noll. An insult to her intelligence and a withered stare were about all he could manage in the way of affection.

"Neither did I," he said simply, an unemotional fact, "but then, Gene never said goodbye to anyone."

She almost smiled.

* * *

"_No, follow the rhythm, not the melody," Evie insisted, once again repositioning his hand on her back, just below her shoulder blade. It had fallen low, not out of some perverseness, but because he was lazy, and being difficult was his equivalent to whining. Their feet tapped against the polished marble, little clicks that were swallowed by leather and dust._

"_Steady now. One-two-three, four-five-six."_

_It was their third lesson together this week, while the parents chittered on about spirit cultivation or psychic seeding or whatever it was they did when the children weren't around. Thus they were under strict orders to read over Doyle's essay and discuss the classification of a 'Perfect Medium,' and were granted use of the Davis' private, enormous(ly expensive) library in order to accomplish said task._

"_No fooling around," Dahlia had warned, and it sounded dangerous through her heavy French accent. _

_So of course they were doing exactly that. Well, Noll put forth a valiant effort to remain focused. It wasn't until Evie blackmailed and bullied him into dancing that he actually abandoned his task. Even Lin, formidable for his fifteen years, was happily plucking tunes from the piano, his attention span admittedly as fleeting as Evie's for the moment. _

_Gene was laughing from his perch on the back of the couch. "Looking good Noll!"_

_The young boy shot his twin his patented glare, but it did little to dampen his mirth. Evie seemed not to notice as she tugged him about on the floor, insisting that he lead but not relinquishing her control. Noll wondered if she'd notice him slip away. Or if Gene cut in._

_He refused to give him the satisfaction of a pleading stare. Absolutely not. She stepped on his foot. Not_ _happening_. _Gene's smile was positively, viciously delighted. He'd always known his twin was less the charming philanthropist and more an amoral sadist. _

"_You need to feel the music more," Evie scolded, her fingers absentmindedly keeping time on his shoulder. His mind, starved for distraction, picked apart her vowels, the equal stress of her words. Her accent was different from those of his adoptive parents. More a mix of an Irish brogue and South London lilt. Slightly more musical than Luella's. It made him sleepy, to hear Evie speak for any extended period of time, though half the reason could be equated to boredom._

"_What the bleeding hell does that mean?" Gene declared raucously, his mouth forming a clumsy imitation of her accent. He'd been mimicking colloquialisms and such since they'd arrived in London a year ago, and Noll's hypothesis that it would become less irritating with time was proven invalid as time went on. Gene grinned obnoxiously, jovial even as her narrowed eyes honed in on him. He'd been on the receiving end of Noll's contained, imploding wrath too many times to be bothered by Evie's contempt. Besides, with her big black eyes and princess curls she looked a little too much like Bambi to really pose a threat._

"_You're nine years old. Don't use such language," Lin reprimanded imperiously from his seat at the piano, not missing a single note as he coaxed a minuet from the seldom used instrument. His smoky brown eyes skimmed over the music before him, half-reading, half-playing from muscle memory. So distracted, he didn't catch the childish hand-puppet and stupid contortion of Gene's handsome young face in mockery. _

"_I wonder, if I slap you, will your face stay that way?" Yet, as always, Lin possessed a strange sort of omniscience when it came to the twins and their respective mischief. And then there was his habit of completing a task with no more direction than his name. Evie had a running theory that by simply calling his name, he was granted a telepathic connection to the speaker, particularly Noll. Lin, of course, denied such a theory, but nonetheless it seemed plausible. At least in their world._

"_Fine, sorry Lin," he mumbled, and had the decency to actually appear ashamed. It was difficult to tell, even to his own brother, whether there was any sincerity in that downward look. Probably not. _

"_You're hopeless," Evie declared, releasing Noll unceremoniously in favor of skipping about on her own, vastly more graceful without the burden of her unschooled partner. He wasted no time in returning to his work, knees drawn to his chest on one of the crushed velvet armchairs, book cradled in his too-small hands._

"_I'm heartbroken," he deadpanned, turning the page idly. They fell into their respective activities in relative quiet, save for the more haunting melody reverberating behind the shut lid of the piano. The silenced unnerved him. When Gene was around, silence was a myth, something one heard about in dreams and stories but never actually experienced. He looked up from his book. A cursory glance around the room, listening for his clumsy footsteps, and he came to the conclusion that his twin was no longer in the library. They hadn't heard him leave._

"_Where'd Gene run off to?" Evie asked, no doubt reading the unease he unwittingly projected. Lin said he'd go over mental shields next time, though his would be less effective than Gene's due to the physical nature of his powers. Noll shrugged._

"_He didn't say anything. That's weird." She looked to him in confusion. "That's weird, right?"_

_He didn't answer for a moment, too absorbed and apathetic to remember the rules of social etiquette. Only as her impatient tapping began did he oblige her. "Not really. Gene never says goodbye when he leaves." Doyle certainly had a whimsical writing style, he thought as he read over the assigned essay._

_She twirled on her toes. "Why not?"_

"_Probably," he explained with no small amount of agitation, "because he knows he'll see you again."_

* * *

I almost forgot about Madoka. She might be in this, if not in a flashback. In which case she's around 29/30. Her age change would also serve a purpose, if she makes an appearance...

Also, the language thing shouldn't be too much of a problem, as everyone speaks fluent Japanese, but should the need arise, would you prefer me to distinguish the languages by **English **and Japanese? If I were to continue in my current fashion, you'd assume that whenever Lin and Naru and Evie are in a room together alone in any combination, they'd be speaking English. That sounds exhausting.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed! Let me know what you think, if you want more!

Please, I need help with motivation. Really bug me about updates. I really want to finish this story!


	3. Chapter 2

Well, 9,704 words later...

**Warnings: **Mentions of BDSM type stuff, but it's definitely not what you think. Other references to adult situations, curse words, etc.

Spoilers (duh): If you haven't read the manga...

Disclaimer: You know the drill

Quick note: Someone who shall not be named requested that I clearly define which language they were speaking, so from now on...

**Bold: English**

Unaffected: Japanese

_Italics: Thoughts or emphasis or flashback._

Assume in a flashback with Lin, Noll, Gene, Evie, or any combination of the four they're speaking English unless I specifically say otherwise.

* * *

It had been too long since he last saw the smile. Before _the news,_ he'd been so used to it, took the soft upturn of her lips for granted. Watching her now, chatting with the matron, she looked radiant. Her whole body exuded tranquility, acceptance, _happiness_. Any doubts he had about their decision vanished. This was right. So very right.

"Hello!" A little voice called, one that had become very familiar over the past six months. A small hand clamped in the fabric over his calf, half-tugging and half-clutching it just to hold it. Just so the connection existed. Maiko looked up at him with sweet brown eyes.

His daughter. The title came with minimal surprise. He wondered when he'd claimed her too. His wife certainly had the moment they laid eyes on the cherubic little girl. So much for wanting to adopt a baby. They'd be going home with a seven-year-old. Happily.

"Hello, Maiko-chan. How are you feeling?" he asked nervously, kneeling slowly on aging joints so he could be closer to her. Would she like the house? _Should we buy her a puppy?_ Thoughts tumbled around in his mind, scenarios. She only liked them in small doses. She would miss the orphanage too much. She would hate them.

"Excited! I get to go home today, right Otousan?" she inquired beatifically, rocking on the balls of her feet, eyes wide and imploring. He felt his heart melt, and part of him questioned when he became such an old lady.

"That's right, Maiko-chan. You're coming home today." His hand reached out of its own accord to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "You're coming home," he repeated, more to himself because he needed the assurance. Before he knew it, little arms were locked around his neck, choking him a bit but he was too overcome to notice. He drew her into his arms, feeling her little body quiver with suppressed joy. _She's so little._

_She's mine._

The room grew cold, but he didn't notice, not with the warmth of his daughter wrapped around him. He didn't hear the matron's voice shouting at him to move, or his wife's terrified howl. He didn't see Maiko's face contorted in fear.

"_Don't touch her."_

He had time to think,_ it's a boy,_ before he was slammed through a window.

* * *

Evie was a baffling human being, Mai decided. Whether or not she liked her was a different story, one she'd yet to figure out.

There was nothing to suggest that she was evil, or harbored ill-intent towards any member of her self-described family, and her 'animal instinct' didn't seem inclined to believe so either. In fact she seemed honest, if not blunt, and for the most part got along with the members of the team she'd met so far. Except Masako, but Mai had yet to decide if that was due to the medium's…_grating_ personality or if Evie knew something incriminating about her. From what Mai had gathered in the two days she'd known her, Evie was relatively normal (all things considered).

Yet every time she stepped within two meters of the woman, her stomach clenched and the not-voice said, _warning! Watch her. _So she did, even if she felt a little on the stalker side. She'd learned from the past not to ignore her intuition. When she did, someone got hurt. Granted, when she paid attention to it _she _got hurt. But given the options, she'd rather it be her.

"Mai, tea!" Naru called from his office, where the subject of her introspection currently resided. She couldn't hear well enough to make out what exactly they were saying, but from Naru' clipped tone and Evie's tendency to break into bouts of laughter, she assumed Evie was teasing him mercilessly.

Mai smirked, admittedly with more mischief than she was used to—she imagined she looked startlingly like Yasu at the moment. The best thing about Evie, enough to override her misgivings at least momentarily, was that she knew every embarrassing story, every dirty little secret from his past. And she had absolutely no qualms about sharing them. Mai learned more about Oliver Davis from a five minute conversation with her than she ever garnered from reading his books and papers.

Amongst many sparkling little tidbits, Mai had learned that: Naru's favorite tea had originally been black tea but since coming here, apparently it was now Earl Grey, which just so happened to be the exact kind Mai served to him daily. Naru hated Disney movies, made it his goal to point out every example of 'family racism,' but still watched them every time Evie and (mostly) Gene asked him to. Naru's favorite color, or at least the one he was inclined to wear most often, was actually forest green, not black. Most interestingly, because she could totally see it and barely imagine it, was that Naru knew how to ballroom dance, and was quite adept at it, thanks to Evie's tutelage.

"_Noll was quite the charmer on the dance floor. Gene had the smile, but at these stuffy social events, Noll was the heartbreaker," _she'd explained idly, as if recounting the day's weather in response to Mai's (probably too) excited inquiry.

"_You'll have to show her sometime, Nature Boy!" _she'd shouted, to which she'd received a gracefully raised eyebrow in response._ "His middle-finger," _she translated, then at the slightest indication of incomprehension on Mai's part, forced Naru to give an impromptu lecture on the Western derogatory gesture and its origin.

Mai's head hadn't really stopped spinning since.

"Mai!" barked "Nature Boy"—she'd have to ask later—his irritation increasingly more overt, which, given his stunted ability to emote, was never a good sign. Thankfully, in the time working for him she'd mastered multi-tasking, and had prepared a full pot while she thought.

"Coming!" Tray balancing somewhat precariously on her forearm, she shouldered her way through the office door, smile firmly in place.

She'd been right, apparently. Naru had his nose buried in a book, as per usual, but judging by his tense shoulders and too-unemotional face he hadn't read a single word. And judging by Evie's blasé perch on his desk, her stiletto-ed foot in his face, she was the reason why. Mai barely resisted turning her smile into a smirk. Naru certainly was thrown off balance by her arrival, if not her antagonizing.

"Would you like some tea, Evie-chan?" She couldn't keep the laugh out of her voice, especially as Naru leaned further and further away from her foot as if at the first hint of contact he'd combust. _They're like children._

"No thank you, Taniyama-san," she replied distractedly, retracting her foot in favor of dangling upside down from his desk, regardless of the relatively short length of her dress. _Scratch that; she's like a child._

"Evie, if you're done substituting my desk for a jungle gym, the adults have work to be done," Naru drawled before taking a sip of his treasured tea. Really, for someone who's known him for so long, she should've known better than to provoke him before his third cup. Evie simply chuckled in response and rolled feet over head to the floor, all with the same level of grace Naru possessed and Mai hurt herself trying to achieve.

"Oh, so that's what we're calling it now?" she teased, eyebrow raised elegantly. "In that case, Lin and I have work to be done as well."

Before Mai could ask (or throw up), Evie was out of the room, sashaying down the hallway, and Naru visibly deflated. His face seemed strangely contorted, though it was a subtle twisting, more involuntary as if he were remembering something unsavory. Which given the circumstances was not unlikely.

She couldn't resist. "Ew."

"For once, I'll share that sentiment." Mai paused mid-retort. Did she hear him correctly, or did he actually agree with her? His eyes were bored, but not flat and detached, and his posture was the same unfailing rigidity. There didn't seem to be any sign that he might have been possessed in that past five minutes. Maybe she should poke him, to be sure.

Before she could summon the willpower to pop his personal bubble, Evie's head peaked through the doorway. "Um, Naru-chan?"

"I thought you were off defiling my work space," was his disgusted response, for which he received yet another cat-like grin.

"In due time, I assure you. But for now, I believe you have a client. A Hamasaki-san, from the Morioka Girl's and Boy's Home?"

His head tipped upwards in interest. "Hamasaki? Mai, was there a scheduled appointment?"

She, luckily, had already begun sifting through her work agenda, scanning the week's page intently for the name. Just last week, she could have sworn someone by that name had called about an orphanage, which ordinarily wouldn't have caught her attention, as for some inexplicable reason they received two or three case requests at orphanages a month. However, ordinarily, her stomach didn't try to jump out of her body at the woman's brief summary. She'd made the appointment without a second thought.

There it was. Her finger traced over her own handwriting speculatively.

"Yep, Hamasaki-san, three o'clock." Mai bit her lip indecisively. Since returning from England, he'd taken cases more readily, but that didn't mean he was any less critical, and something in her demanded that they take this case, be it her clairvoyance or 'animal' intuition or some other strange power that may pop up. _Now to tell Naru that without getting insulted in the process_. "Um, Naru?"

He paused in his leisurely but purposeful trek to the door and looked at her curiously, if not a bit impatiently.

"I think you should take this case," she said on a rushing exhale, fighting the urge to close her eyes against his response. She could hear the 'idiot' forming in his throat now.

But he wasn't speaking, not even to insult her. His eyes were narrowed in thought, locked onto hers and damn it all she could feel the blush rising in her cheeks. She didn't look away though, not even when he smirk-smiled and shook his head.

"Is this your intuition speaking?"

Mai wasn't sure a comprehensible sound could squeak through her throat at the moment, so she nodded deliberately, meeting his steady gaze with determination she didn't know if she actually felt. They studied each other silently for a long minute, ignorant to Evie's awkward gawking just outside the door.

"Okay."

* * *

"Would you like some tea, Hamasaki-san?" Mai offered cordially, having placed the obligatory peace offering before Naru first, even if it defied her hostess sensibilities.

"Yes, thank you Taniyama-san," she replied shakily before lowering her head, brown eyes drawn to the carpet. Usually, Mai wouldn't feel much about a case from the client, aside from the obvious turmoil and occasional skepticism. She could read the person just fine, could readily identify pranksters over the phone and sometimes submit them to an hour-long lecture courtesy of her no-nonsense boss, but as far as premonition involving the actual activity, _that_ didn't come until maybe the first night if they were lucky.

That said, her stomach was screaming at her. _Help her help her help her help her. _She clutched the spot automatically, something like a nervous gesture that she knew was too obvious but couldn't stop anyway. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Naru watching her, his brow furrowed pensively.

"Getting right to it, what sort of activity have you been experiencing," he inquired without inflection, nose turned down to his notebook, while Mai took it upon herself to sit next to the obviously shaken woman. In a moment of impulsivity, he'd told her once that her presence was calming to people, and she'd made a habit of offering herself as support, especially when Naru seemed disinclined to show any hint of humanity during these interviews.

"Well, the home has a history of strange goings-on," Hamasaki-san explained, her voice strong even as she looked away from them, "It's been in the family for years. You see, my grandmother was the matron for sixty years before she passed. When I was a child she would tell me stories of knocking and footsteps in the night. I always thought it might be the other children playing games or she was simply trying to frighten me. But sometimes, I'd walk down the hallway during the summer, and out of nowhere the air turned icy. Once I heard a scream in the middle of the night, but no one else woke up. They hadn't heard it. When I came to work with my grandmother, I noticed the little girls in particular would giggle at the strangest times, when no one had said anything, or they'd walk as if they were holding hands with someone."

Naru looked up from his notebook. "That's not entirely disconcerting. Many young children have imaginary friends, do they not?" Mai shot him a poisonous look, one he very pointedly ignored. He could at least pretend to be blindly accepting, she thought with an internal huff of indignation.

"Yes," she conceded hesitantly, "and typically I wouldn't bother. But when I asked them who they were talking to, they all told me the same name. Hideyo."

He returned his attention to his notebook and nodded for her to continue. Hamasaki-san turned a questioning look to Mai, who simply smiled encouragingly. It would take a millennium to explain Naru's subtle, socially-inept (or maybe dismissive?) body language.

"This has been occurring for years, and I've never been too concerned. The children were happy, so I saw no reason to disrupt routine." Her expression abruptly twisted, tears pooling in her eyes as her hands shook violently. Mai clasped them between her own to try and quell the trembling.

She had seen many people come and go from this office, witnessed every emotion play out on their faces. Her whole profession was surrounded by fear and uncertainty, and she was no stranger to both. Yet somehow, no matter how many times she watched the terror bloom in their eyes, her heart broke for them. Maybe it was good that she hadn't grown numb to it, but it would definitely make her job less difficult if she were.

Naru evidently wasn't numb to it either, she thought warmly as he passed a box of tissues to their distraught client. He wouldn't bother if he didn't care. "Hamasaki-san, has something changed?"

The woman sucked in a heaving breath in an effort to calm herself, her hand tightening almost unbearably over Mai's. When she tried and failed to speak again, Mai offered, "Take your time," through her half-closed windpipe, looking desperately to her boss. _Something's not right here, I can't breathe. _Mai wanted to claw at her own throat, to try to tear free from the pressure, but there was nothing, she knew there was nothing. Even if she could move there'd be nothing.

"I'm alright. It's just, recently, whatever's there, a ghost or demon or _whatever, _it has been attacking people. Men, specifically, who look to adopt young girls. One was paralyzed." She inhaled sharply. "I don't know what to do anymore. The girls are terrified. They're afraid they'll never find a home."

Hamasaki was still talking, still shaking, her hand still wrapped around Mai's. But she didn't hear a word she said, it all sounded so fuzzy, fuzzy and loud, like the outdated radio blasting static from her neighbor's apartment. Her head hurt. Her throat hurt. _Why can't I breathe?_

_Naru, help._

"Lin!" his voice broke sharply through the din, and suddenly there were eyes on her. Hamasaki, with her dark brown looking wild with shock and residual fear, Naru, the dark blue washing into the black of his pupils, flat and hard and she knew he was concerned, but she couldn't think of why. Every inch of her was tingling almost pleasantly, her vision swimming. The pressure around her throat seemed more caressing, comforting. Mai wanted to sleep.

Through the spots dancing across her eyes, she saw a bright light, then another, then three more, and the pressure was gone. Hands pulled her up, or forward, to somewhere with warmth and a voice in her ear.

"Breathe, Mai." A hand on her back, not gently and soothing, smacking it roughly, encouraging her starved lungs to work. Mai complied, even if she was sleepy, and let the air in. It assaulted her, forced its way angrily down her windpipe, stretching her lungs, and she tried not to cough but she couldn't help it. Once she started, she couldn't stop.

"That's a good girl. Just breathe." Another voice this time. _Lin,_ her brain, drinking in the oxygen hungrily, reminded her. Were they his hands at her back? But he seemed too far away. Naru? There was a third person in the office, not a client, but she couldn't remember her name.

"Is she alright?" There were too many voices now. Mai wanted to sleep again. Her head was throbbing, and her throat felt like it would bruise and really, she just wanted to go home. All the weird shit happened to her. She slumped against the warm, hard thing behind her, and it tensed, but she ignored it, nuzzling into the scratchy fabric.

"Aw…"

"Evie," the warm thing rumbled threateningly, and distantly she realized it was a chest she'd fallen gracelessly onto, and it most likely belonged to Naru. Perhaps she should care, and normally she probably would, but being strangled by nothing seemed a good enough reason to forget what she normally did. _I can freak out later,_ she thought numbly, clutching his lapel and trying to stop the shaking before it began.

"….spirit attached to you….gone now…." Voices drifted in and out as her conscious state fluctuated. A hand fell absentmindedly to her shoulder, not moving, just a solid point of contact that kept her rooted to reality for a few seconds longer.

"Naoki-san will walk you out, Hamasaki-san. We will be contacting you with our arrival time as well as our requirements as soon as possible."

Mai was out before she could celebrate.

* * *

The weather called for a warm day, about 24℃, very little breeze and bright, shining sun all afternoon. In their typical cheeky banter the anchor and the pretty, silly twenty-something year-old weathergirl laughed at the idea of visiting a beach for the day. It certainly wasn't sweater-weather, she'd commented cutely, before they moved on to sports or something.

So of course, Mai was wearing a turtleneck.

She'd woken up at her apartment (blushing because she was pretty sure she knew how she got there and she hadn't had time to clean the kitchen) with a massive headache, wounded pride, and a lovely purple ring of fingers on her neck. Popping Tylenol, she walked out of her apartment without much thought to the ugly bruises. It wasn't as if they hadn't seen worse on her, and she could handle perfectly well an overtly concerned Evie, who wasn't used to seeing her wounded in battle.

But then her damned neighbor, a promiscuous, boundary-ignoring, self-proclaimed 'starving artist' who called her little sister while blatantly checking her out, had given her this 'I know what you've been doing, and it's probably kinky sex,' look, and she'd darted for a scarf. Except she didn't have one, so she went for the next best thing.

She just hoped no one would notice if she turned up the AC.

As she stared forlornly at the stack of paperwork she had to sign and collate before they could leave for Morioka tomorrow, the door swung open with far too much pizzazz than was necessary this early in the morning. She didn't even have to look up to know who it was.

"Good morning, Jou-chan!" he practically sang, drawing out every syllable obnoxiously and _loudly._ Mai looked nervously to Naru's office door. He'd been in a bad mood this morning and Bou-san's…._cheerfulness_ was sure to aggravate him all the more.

"Keep it down, you silly old man!" she hissed, but sprang from her seat to hug him regardless. His arms wrapped around her like a vice, not his usual bear-hug, but one that was filled with concern. She could feel him sigh in relief through his chuckles.

She frowned. "Did Lin-san tell you?" And here she was hoping she wouldn't have to tell them and worry them unnecessarily. She didn't _die, _she wasn't even that hurt. Hence, no reason to rile them.

Ayako, whom she just noticed had snuck through the door with John and Masako in tow, shook her head. "Naru called me, actually. He wanted me to check you over."

Mai stared at her in confusion as she circumvented the monk (not without offering a smirking remark to his age) and produced a penlight from nowhere. Oh, right. Ayako was a doctor. She didn't know how she forgot. It made a ton more sense for the fashionable redhead to be a doctor than a miko.

"No petechial hemorrhaging, all responses normal. Take off your sweater," she ordered in a voice Mai didn't recognize, more authoritative and gentler than the impatient bark she was used to. _Ayako has a doctor voice. _The thought made her want to giggle.

"What?"

Ayako rolled her eyes. "Naru told us you might have bruises. Let me see them."

She made to protest, but a heavy hand at plopping unceremoniously atop her head cut the words in her throat.

"We're not stupid, Mai. Why else would you be wearing a sweater with a neckline up to your ears if you weren't hiding something?" Bou-san added helpfully, ruffling her hair and tugging her collar pointedly. Mai swatted his hand away, blushing.

"Fine, but no one make a fuss. It looks worse than it is," she relented, passing a threatening glare over everyone, even the wide-eyed priest half-hiding behind Masako, before slipping the sweater over her head. She thanked the gods that her head didn't get stuck in the neck.

At least no one gasped. She probably would've lost it if they even tried to be that dramatic. Ayako clicked her tongue against her teeth disapprovingly, as if Mai could control the random spirit that had wrapped its little hands around her throat, and prodded the darker spots were its fingertips had curled into her flesh.

Mai yelped. "Hey, not necessary!"

Alas, she went ignored. "Bou-san, what do you think?"

The suddenly serious monk invaded her personal space, holding his hand just above the prints on her neck. Comparing the size, Mai realized with a start. She hadn't thought much of it when she was poking the bruises disinterestedly this morning. "They're small. Probably a woman."

"Or a child," John offered, smiling sheepishly when Mai's irritation was directed at him briefly.

Ayako hummed in agreement, then turned her attention back to her impromptu patient. "I'll give you an ointment that should help the discoloration and bring down the swelling. Try to avoid getting attacked in the future, okay Mai?"

_As if I have much of a choice. _"Sure thing, Doc!" she answered brightly, smiling beatifically at the responding glare. The others took the exchange as a sort of dismissal from the conversation, making their way to the couches so they could begin their daily routine of distracting Mai.

They didn't waste any time. Just as she was seriously considering actually getting her work done on time, Bou-san of course had to sit on her desk and turn his pleading, kicked-puppy face on full power, so _of_ _course_ she couldn't resist, unless she wanted to feel like a horrible excuse for a human being.

"So Jou-chan…," he began with his trademark detective voice, too much curiosity and mischief mixed in there for her taste, "tell us about this visitor. Masako won't tell us anything and John's too polite to ask the nitty-gritty questions."

Mai rolled her eyes. She should've known there was an ulterior motive to their visit. If medical attention were the only thing, Ayako would've come alone. But no, even John was sitting on the couch, trying not to look interested even though he clearly was, and Masako looked ravenous for gossip. Anything to fuel the fire, Mai thought, amused.

"You're assuming I know any more than they do," she commented primly, then blushed, because she sounded a little too much like Naru for her liking. She was spending too much time with him.

"You sound like Naru. Come on Mai, tell us!" he insisted, pouting even more, if that was possible. She sighed.

"Her name is Evie. She's a childhood friend of Naru, and she came to see him after she found out about G—," she couldn't bring herself to say his name aloud, not when her boss was in earshot, "about Naru's brother." She looked at the paper she was about to sign. "That's all I know."

Bou-san visibly deflated. "You have to know more than that. What about your animal instinct?" Mai shot him a withered glare as she signed the next document. "Sorry, I mean your intuition. What do you feel from her?"

She paused in her absentminded work, staring, unseeing, at the desktop. What _did _she feel from her, besides a jumble of suspicion and twisted confusion she had no hopes of interpreting? _Watch her. _That's all she had. Two words that hummed in her stomach and in her heart. _Watch her._

"I don't know," she answered slowly, honestly, "She's not evil, or planning to hurt us as far as I know, but there's something..._off_ about her. I can't tell exactly what it is. Like there's something bad inside her, but she's good. Maybe the other way around. I just...it's strange to be around her. So confusing."

There was silence as they contemplated her words. John for his part was juggling respect for Mai's abilities and happiness that she was more comfortable with them, and turning her confusion over in his mind. He remembered when only a short time ago she would've dismissed her feelings as fleeting nonsense, and would've reprimanded them for even asking. Strange, how much she flourished when Naru left. Like she was trying to prove her abilities to herself and to him. Whatever the reason, John was happy she trusted herself as much as they trusted her.

"I don't trust her either, Mai," Masako admitted from behind her kimono sleeve, as if she were uncouth in agreeing with Mai. "She has a revolting personality."

"Perhaps we should let the others meet her first, before we start passing judgments? It would be wrong to poison their view of her, when we ourselves know very little about Naoki-san," John suggested carefully, mindful of the medium's fragile temper, and rose to his feet. "I'll make some tea while we wait."

No one felt the need to point out that they hadn't the faintest idea if Evie would be coming to the office that day. They let John escape into the kitchen without a word.

* * *

Every couple of steps, she'd let her hips bump against his. Outwardly, the soft collisions were a result of her choice in footwear and their proximity. The way she latched onto his arm, not too tightly but still a firm enough grip to feel his muscle flex and tense beneath, could be construed as equally innocent. He was simply walking her out of the restaurant in which they'd shared dinner and lingered for an hour after their meal to chat.

Walking her back to his apartment because in her haste to 'bitch slap Naru,' she'd neglected to book a hotel room for more than two nights. Not that he'd minded. Naru had insisted on a separate living arrangement, and as a compromise they were neighbors. He was free from a rather compromising run-in should his ward be home.

That was the problem.

It wasn't innocent. Evie knew exactly what she was doing. What's worse, Lin was disinclined to do anything about it.

"**So, Lin-san,**" she began almost teasingly, if not for the edge of seriousness coloring her words, "**What's with the Mai and Naru thing?**"

_Strange tactic,_ he thought, almost smiling at her intuitiveness while fighting the urge to groan in frustration. "**I've told you to call me Koujo too many times,**" he answered, ignoring her question in favor of fielding his own war. Her body tipped closer to his once more.

"**And I've told you, only on special occasions**." It was dismissive, if not a little nostalgic but he caught the hint. Memories flashed across his eyes from years ago, awash in heat and gasping and if he were anyone else he'd blush. _Score one for Evie. _"**You didn't answer my question.**"

He rolled his eyes. "**Forgive me, **_**Naoki-san, **_**but I** **haven't** **the** **faintest** **idea**."

"**He likes her, right?**"

Lin said nothing, his mouth twitching at the corners. _Think a little deeper. Naru does nothing halfway. _

There was a sudden tug on his arm as she stopped abruptly, her mouth fallen open in surprise and any trace of seduction gone from her eyes. He tracked the miniature explosion occurring across her face, from shock, to disbelief, to joy, then back to shock, then to mischief, and he didn't have the energy to interpret that last one.

"**No way**." A smile burst from her lips. "**No way!**"

Lin could do little but raise his eyebrow as she danced in an altogether too ridiculous manner for someone her age, in her profession, in public. But she didn't seem to care that she was attracting unwanted attention from nearby pedestrians, content to celebrate even as he tugged her insistently towards his apartment building. He'd missed this, he realized, her complete lack of regard to social norms and her ability to make him forget the time that had passed, the years between visits and weeks between phone calls. Forget that he wasn't a gangly, over-serious fifteen year-old babysitting a set of psychic identical twins while he studied to be an onmyouji, and that she wasn't a thirteen year-old ballerina learning to separate her emotions from those around her and hiding a gift that was more of a curse.

Part of him felt like maybe he should share his unexpected sentimentality in a more verbose fashion. But then, he was never one for words, if he could avoid them. So instead he tucked her beneath his arm, pressing her closer, and offered a fleeting smile.

"**I missed you too, Lin**," she murmured affectionately, reaching up to clasp his hand in hers.

* * *

His apartment was too cold, as if he hardly ever stayed in it, which, considering his occupation, made a shit ton of sense. In any case, Evie's attempt to fall back asleep did not appreciate the chill keeping her awake.

_Though, _she thought to herself, a little giddy either from sleep deprivation or good old-fashioned excitement, _Koujo's doing an excellent job keeping me warm._

He was molded around her back, one arm slung over her waist, face tucked into her neck, his warmth radiating at every point of contact. She could feel it tingling in her half-awake nerves, along with the sleep-muddled and unrestrained emotions exuding from her companion. Contented, affectionate, perhaps a little aroused, though that could be the vestiges of the night before, and underneath he was weary. Too long away from home, too long dealing with Noll. Or at least that was her interpretation. She could be wrong.

Probably not.

When he tucked her closer in his sleep, nuzzled in her neck and breathed a deep sigh, she couldn't help but giggle silently. For such an intimidating, mysterious man, he was such a cuddle-whore. But the embrace was soothing, and soon enough she felt her eyes grow heavy again, shutting out the pale morning light.

She didn't hear the front door open, nor the cautious footsteps in first the kitchen, then the living room, then finally making their way to the small, spartan bedroom.

"**Get up.**" The voice was sharp, not loud but it still cut at her ears. Maybe it was the alarm clock going off and if she punched it hard enough it would go away. Her arm thus began a strange flailing search, fist swinging dangerously towards the source of the voice.

"**Please refrain from damaging my face,**" the voice reprimanded, before a strong grip caught her wrist. Evie pried her eyes open and looked up at the black-clad figure looming beside the bed, his pale face a vision of subdued rage. How he managed to look like an avenging angel this early in the morning, she was loathe to understand.

"**Lord knows that would be a tragedy**," she groaned, her throat rough from sleep, and sat up, heedless of her state of undress and the way-too-apathetic-in-the-presence-of-a-naked-woman teenage boy looking pointedly to the side. Lin huffed in his failing sleep.

"**Tell me this is a nightmare and Noll isn't actually in my apartment,**" he growled, face in the pillow because he'd yet to wake fully and he wasn't sure he wanted to open his eyes just yet.

"**If only. We were supposed to be on the road by now,**" said boy returned icily, crossing his arms. Evie had to admit with the couple of inches he'd gained since last she'd seen him, plus the clothing choice, he actually seemed intimidating.

Lin had the good grace to turn over and face his young charge. "**What time is it**?"

"**Five**."

Evie stretched languidly, like a cat, and made her way to the bathroom in hopes of a shower and avoiding Naru's wrath. It was way too early for that. "**Just give us a minute!**" she called from behind the sanctuary of the bathroom door.

"**In the future, could you pretend to have any sense of modesty,**" he quipped, with that irritating lack of inflection he'd mastered at too young an age, "**There are some things I'd prefer not to see.**"

"**It's not anything you haven't seen before**," she reminded him over the streaming water. Lin rolled his eyes at the memories he'd rather forget.

"**And to think I'd almost managed to repress those memories**." Noll looked a little green around the edges, his nose wrinkled in obvious disgust. "**Hurry up**."

It was difficult to decipher beneath the roaring of the shower, but Lin could just make out an irritated "**impatient**" followed by a squeak when she dropped what was probably soap. As he chuckled at her expense, Naru turned on him, his blue eyes narrowed as if to say _I'm not finished with you just yet._

Lin sat up, carefully covered by his mangled sheets, and faced him unafraid.

"**We are behind schedule now, thanks to you. When the others ask why, I'll be sure to explain the situation **_**quite **_**thoroughly.**" With that, he turned on his heels and left, too gracefully to be considered stomping. Lin just barely suppressed a groan of dread.

Today was going to be a long_, long _day.

* * *

It was five-thirty on a Sunday, and not one of them had stopped squawking since Naru spilled the proverbial beans, much to Evie's apathy and Lin's dismay. Even John's awkward accent intermingled with the din, though he at least attempted to change the subject, for which Mai was incredible grateful.

If she heard one more jab about the "Situation", she was going to punch someone. Preferably Yasu. Actually, she had a crappy right hook. Maybe she could rile Lin enough to do it for her.

"So, who's riding with the lovebirds?" Bou-san, now and forever more known as the Unfortunate One, chortled. _That's it. _Mai cracked her knuckles in preparation.

"OW! What was that for?" he howled, rubbing at his throbbing bicep and pouting childishly. She spared him no mercy and shot a dangerous glare in his direction.

"So Lin-san got laid, big freaking deal! I'm tired of hearing about it, and I'm pretty sure Lin-san and Evie-chan don't want their personal business broadcasted." _It's awkward enough with the mental images._ Ignoring his wide eyes and slack jaw, she turned on her heels to face the remainder of their team, her sight honing in on her boss. He was to blame for this, she decided, he and his stupid temper.

"Naru, you had no right to share that information. A simple 'we're late, sorry' would have been more than enough. Now we have to deal with these two," she gestured wildly between Bou-san and Yasu, who would be assisting from the office but had come to see them off, "making jokes for the whole case! Next time, when you feel like being petty, make sure they're not in ear-shot. The rest of you, if I hear one more word about this, you'll have to get my boot," she pointed to her toe threateningly, "surgically removed from up your ass!"

No one was quite sure what to say in response, and Evie was wondering if this were a daily occurrence or something she could only look forward to occasionally. Mai, having said her piece and being content in it (if not a little guilty because she cursed, and told off her incredibly vindictive boss in one glorious display), marched deliberately towards Bou-san's car.

Lin couldn't help but notice how similarly the young girl and Naru stormed off. It was amusing, to say the least, especially now that Naru was blinking owlishly in shock. _Mai should reprimand him more often,_ he thought, smirking as he slipped into the driver's seat of the van. The cars had been packed long before Naru, Lin, and Evie had finally arrived, in hopes to avoid inciting the already dubious temper of the aforementioned boss, a fact for which he was exceedingly grateful. After being demolished like that, he was certain to be in a bad enough mood without any further delays.

"Taniyama-san, why don't you ride with me and Naru?" he called, outright smiling as she turned her stomping towards the van. He didn't need the protection of course, but he felt it would be vastly more interesting to have a snappish Mai deal with Naru's moodiness than himself.

Ayako, for her part, was still turning the events over in her mind with little success. "What's gotten into her?" she finally barked, her confusion sharpening her voice.

John shrugged, trying valiantly to fight the small smile threatening to turn his lips, and started for the car he, Ayako, and Bou-san would be sharing. He'd long since learned to avoid questioning Mai and her strange ways.

"It's too early for this shit!" the aforementioned girl declared in parting, slamming the door shut.

* * *

The trees were a blur of red and gold. She'd tried, she really did, to entertain herself by chasing individual trees as they passed, but it didn't hold her attention the way it did when she was a child. And now she was stuck, bored out of her mind, in an utterly silent car.

No music, no conversation, no make-shift sign language to John in the next car if they happened to line up, no writing 'help me' and holding it up in the window so someone would save her (which she did try, but was utterly shot down by Naru's pointed look). Lin and Naru never spoke a word on these rides. Normally she'd text Bou-san, but they were in the country and her service was spotty. She thought maybe Evie would engage her in conversation, but the woman was curled up next to Lin, her face tucked in the crevice between his back and the bench seat, fast asleep.

Maybe she should follow Evie's lead. They'd been driving for two hours, and they still had five more to go.

"Mai," Naru said softly, tracking the indecisive shift of her features from one thought to the other in his peripheral. An attractive blush bloomed along her cheekbones as she turned to look at him, and despite the obvious desire to fall asleep she was bright-eyed and curious. Naru smirked to himself. Her preoccupation with his face created such interesting contrast in his assistant. On one hand, she openly disliked his 'narcissistic' behavior and was quick to challenge him, but on the other she actively sought his approval. Not to mention her blatant attraction to him.

_At least my face,_ he added, thinking back two months.

_Don't worry. You'll see him again._

Somehow the idea made him queasy. Which was only natural, he supposed. After all, he did care for her. He wouldn't wish her predicament on anyone, and was especially concerned for his more emotionally-inclined assistant. Not that he'd ever tell her that much.

"If you're tired, you should sleep, dummy," he said casually, turning the page he hadn't read and skimming his eyes uselessly over the words. He was much too focused on the way Mai visibly bristled, her whole face adopting the red of her cheeks and her brow furrowed in barely restrained anger. Even riled, she was still mindful of their sleeping companion.

"Fine!" she hissed eloquently, beating herself up for thinking of nothing better to say. Well, she was tired. With all the aggression she could manage to express to a pillow, she tucked her legs to her chest and shut her eyes with righteous indignation, blind to Naru's silent chuckling at her expense.

_Great, I'm angry. Now I'll never fall asleep._

About two minutes later, her breathing had evened out, and Naru was finally able to return his focus to the illuminating discussion of spirituality in parapsychology. That is, until Mai made a barely perceptible squeak in her sleep, her head slipping from the pillow to rest heavily against his arm. His whole body tensed at the unexpected contact, book forgotten in his lap, as he debated whether to move her or let it continue. While waking her would definitely invoke very satisfying embarrassment on her part, he lacked the energy and the inclination to waste effort on a very miniscule dilemma. He picked up his book, strangely relaxed as her breath fanned along his arm, and continued the chapter.

Lin watched him from the corner of his eyes, lips quirking in an amused smile. He just hoped Noll figured himself out before Evie called Madoka and Luella and they got to scheming. There wasn't a force in heaven nor on Earth that could stop those three when they put their decidedly manipulative heads together.

* * *

Mai woke to little lights dancing in her vision. At first, she was entranced. One stayed in her vision, flitting from left to right playfully, like a puppy rousing its littermates to a game. It had yet to register, why this place was so horribly, horribly recognizable. Why her heart dropped to her stomach.

_Oh no._

"Mai," the all-too familiar voice called, a warm hand guiding her to her feet while she stared uncomprehendingly. _This couldn't be happening. It's not possible. He's gone. He left me without a word._

But there he was, clad in black just the same, smile soft if not a little more sheepish than she remembered. She could see the differences, now that she knew. The little layer of baby fat that had disappeared from Naru's face over the years, the imperceptible lines around Gene's eyes engraved by his smiles. The natural way his lips turned up. Mai hadn't realized how much she'd missed him.

"Gene!" she cried happily, flinging herself into his arms with a little too much enthusiasm, and he stumbled back under her weight. She didn't know whether to be offended, or confused because technically they were incorporeal.

"You said my name," he responded with a hint of wonder, hugging her tightly but briefly before pulling back to look at her. Mai rolled her eyes.

"Of course. I would've done it from the start if you had told me who you were!" she half-teased, half-reprimanded, shifting between being angry and excited to see her friend after all this time.

Gene scratched the back of his neck nervously, and had the good grace to look at his feet ashamedly. Something Naru would never do, she noted distantly. "Sorry about that. You assumed I was Noll, and I thought correcting you might complicate things too much."

Mai thought that his excuse was just a little too half-assed to explain away confusing the hell out of her for weeks. "Well, it's done. Anyway, why are you here?" she asked with more nonchalance than she felt.

"Well, you see…" he began warily, straightening his shoulders as if he were preparing to do something unpleasant. Which was quite possible. However, she wasn't really all that concerned by his unwillingness to respond, because she'd just inadvertently reminded herself of one crucial fact:

Gene hadn't crossed over.

"WHY THE HELL ARE YOU STILL HERE?!" she shouted before he could continue, shocking him into silence, "You know what happens to spirits who become attached to the living world for too long! What are you thinking?!"

"Actually I—."

"If Naru finds out you're still here, he'll flip! And I'll have to deal with him!" Her body shuddered at the thought of Naru finding out his brother had yet to find peace. She never wanted to see that haunted look on his face again.

"Mai, if you'd let me—."

Tears welled in her eyes. "You can't go insane, because then we'll have to exorcise you and I don't want to watch that, Gene, and think of your broth—."

"MAI!"

Her jaw snapped shut with an audible clack. His hands rested heavily on her shoulders, keeping her still as if she'd run away at the slightest opportunity. For a moment he just looked at her, tracing her features with a fond sort of smile, and a strange satisfied amusement. Nothing like the self-important sneering she had grown to cherish, but warm and inviting in its own right.

"If you'd let me finish, I would've said I don't know why I'm back in your dreams," he explained with an eerily familiar smirk, chuckling at his own accidental joke before releasing her.

Mai had worked for Naru for almost two years. Wording, she'd come to realize through him, was everything. In the past she would've missed his lie by omission, but she knew better now, and his attempt to placate her failed brilliantly.

"That wasn't my question. I want to know why you haven't moved on."

He looked proud for a moment, but it gave way to frustration. "My reasons are my own. But," he added, seeing her brow furrow in recharged anger, "I'll be careful. If I feel even slightly off, I'll leave. My choice to stay is exactly that. A choice."

She let herself be assured, even if part of her burned to know. But she knew it was simple curiosity. If she didn't need to know, she didn't need know, and she'd push him no further.

"Do you have any idea why you're here?" she asked instead, gesturing to the familiar black nothing filled with floating lights. Gene looked around in hopes that the answer would appear from nowhere, and shrugged.

"Not the faintest. You've accepted the existence of your gifts, which was my original goal, so I don't really need to help you into dreams anymore." He smiled disarmingly, but she could see something twinkle in his eyes, something like mischief. "Maybe you called me. Anything you want to tell me, Mai?"

His look was very pointed, a little suggestive, and despite herself she blushed. He took it as confirmation.

"Ha! I knew it! You told him, didn't you? Come on, tell me! What did you say? What did he say? Did you kiss? Oh Lord, Mother and Madoka will have a field day!"

Mai watched him babble excitedly with fascination. She never would have pegged him as a gossiper, but then, she didn't know that much about him. The thought made the smile slip from her face. He didn't seem to notice, content to bounce on his toes and speculate wistfully. She wished his speculation had more truth.

"Do you want to hear the answer or not?" she asked, if only to cease his incessant babble. She was suddenly very glad she hadn't fallen for this twin. Aside from the obvious issue, she didn't think she could handle his exuberance on top of her own and the other Irregulars'. Her head would never stop hurting.

He stopped suddenly, so suddenly she started a bit, and plopped to the ground with his legs crossed, chin resting on the palm of his hand in theatrical focus. She rolled her eyes, but followed suit.

"Yes I did tell him." Before he could unleash the cheer she could see building in his throat, she continued loudly, "but we're not together."

His eyes narrowed suspiciously. "What did you tell him?"

"That I, um,_ liked _him. In a very special way," she repeated awkwardly. Normally, when she shared such stories, it was with her female peers or Ayako, not a man. Especially not the brother of the man she'd fallen in love with. _Especially _not his twin.

"What did he say?" Still suspicious. The narrowed eyes just looked wrong on him, somehow.

Mai didn't exactly enjoy reliving the moment, but she shared it anyway. "That I loved you, not him. Then he said it would be okay, because we'd see each other again. I think he was trying to comfort me."

Gene said nothing. His jaw was slack, eyes wide in disbelief. For a long minute his mouth opened and closed like that of a fish, searching for words she didn't think he'd ever find again. Then his manner shifted abruptly, shoulders tense, brow furrowed, eyes narrowed. He looked _furious._

He looked like Naru_._

"That…unbelievable…utterly dense…completely masochistic little fucker! He was so bleeding close! Damn him!"

Mai was pretty sure she'd never heard that many expletives used in one breath before. And he wasn't done, which was a frightening prospect indeed. He'd even begun pacing, his hands thrown in the air exasperatedly.

As she followed his goalless trek, she felt a tugging at the edges of her consciousness. Her shoulder was warm, like a hand was resting on there. Her actual shoulder. There was faint buzzing in her ears that became gradually clearer, and she could make out voices.

One voice.

"Mai," it echoed in her dreamscape. Gene stopped abruptly and looked at his hands, which had already begun the tell-tale fading. She was waking up.

"Mai, don't tell him I'm still here. Please. I need to talk to him myself," he pleaded with a twinge of desperation, his voice sounding very far away as the new voice took over. Mai nodded, unsure if she could speak while transitioning to reality.

"Mai, come on, wake up," a woman demanded impatiently, and she felt the warmth at her shoulder more powerfully. Evie. Evie was trying to wake her up. Weird, she'd never heard voices in her dreamscape transcend from reality before.

Gene looked heavenward, his body translucent, a strange look on his face. "Who is that?"

"Evie, I think." So she could speak, it just sounded very hollow.

"Evie's in Japan?"

Mai couldn't answer this time, her vision fading quickly. Gene was no more than an outline, the lights little pinpricks against the black backdrop. The view was shrinking, closing in on itself and soon she could see nothing but darkness. Her eyes were shut compulsively and uselessly; she couldn't see anything anyway. She was falling, but she was used to the feeling, the plummeting in her stomach and the almost nonexistent fear of hitting the ground.

Her landing into her body was vastly more graceful than it normally was. She opened her eyes to an empty van and a pale face invading her personal space.

"We're here, sleepyhead."

* * *

"_This is a waste of time."_

"_Oh, come off it Noll."_

_Lin watched the three argue. It always seemed the same division, he thought, Gene and Evie against Noll, at least when it came to doing something the latter thought to be either pointless or 'demoralizing.' Though in this case, rather than annoyed at their bickering, Lin was confused. Noll hardly ever turned down practical application of their studies without blatant reason. His student was nothing if not intellectual._

_Noll ignored his older brother. "Evie, you are more than aware of your powers. I see no reason to put myself under your scrutiny for the sake of boredom."_

_He was far too well-spoken for a ten year-old, Lin thought with a twinge of irritation. A child should not be more intelligent than himself. But then, Noll was probably smarter than most of the individuals working for BSPR, Dr. Davis and Dr. Naoki included. What a frightening prospect._

"_This isn't for me, Nature Boy. It's for you. To practice mental blocks against people _like_ me," Evie explained, her already dubious patience thinning every second, "And besides, Gene would be the one 'under my scrutiny,' not you. Actually, you have no right to complain. So stop."_

_She probably would've been more convincing without sticking her tongue out. Noll's eyes flickered uncertainly to his brother, just a fleeting glance, but it spoke of his true concern more plainly than words; he was protecting Gene. An unwarranted urge, as Evie had an unusual level of control over her abilities, but there was rarely anything rational about love._

"_He'll be fine, Noll. Don't doubt my teaching skills," he half-teased, half-assured, looking to his young student seriously. An unspoken agreement passed between the two. Noll would let it happen, and Lin would step in if necessary. _

_Gene rolled his eyes. "You worry too much. Like Lin-sensei said, I'll be fine." Lin bristled at the nickname as he turned to Evie expectantly. "Bring it on, Bambi."_

_She didn't react to the nickname like she normally would (violent flailing and indignant huffing). Despite her relative immaturity, she had the uncanny ability to slip into a more professional mien. Her features were blank as she stepped closer, the proximity easing some of the strain of reading. She was a powerful empath even at fourteen, his father told him, capable of slipping past some of the strongest mental walls. Coupled with Gene's tendency to become easily distracted, Lin was on edge. Evie might go too far. Gene may not be prepared. _

_He needed to relax. It wasn't like him to get worked up over possibilities. Gene seemed to be doing fine, anyway, his youth-plump face contorted in concentration, his hand curled around Evie's like a vice. They weren't moving, staring hard at each other but unseeing, one searching for weakness, prodding along the walls the other built and rebuilt in a constant cycle. He could almost see the energy crackling between them, the push and pull that was so much like water, fluid and changing. That was the nature of their abilities, both separate and combined. Dynamic. _

_So entranced, he didn't see the Gene's eyebrow twitch, or his hand tighten around Evie's. He didn't see her completely lost in her searching, her mind asleep as it made room for Gene. _

"_Lin," Noll started in warning, his eyes glued to his brother's face, a mirror of his own._

_Several things occurred at once. _

_A sharp yelp, from who no one could distinguish, then a scream, a long, hollow scream. Lin was moving before the sound had registered, his arms around Evie's waist and tugging, trying to pull her arm free. _Break the connection. Break the connection._ But Gene was seizing, his hand clamped around her wrist, the scream tearing from his throat. Evie was limp in his arms, like a ragdoll. _Break the connection.

"_Noll, I need to you to break his grip," he ordered calmly, even if his mind was screaming right alongside Gene. The younger boy was staring at the pair in horror, eyes wide and unblinking. "Focus Noll. Break the grip."_

_He seemed to shake himself awake, brow furrowed in concentration as he nodded. Lin turned his own attention back to Evie, readjusting her in his arms. Her eyes were open still, but utterly blank, almost dead except he could feel her heartbeat fluttering against his chest. He smacked her gently at first, then harder, desperately._

_Nothing. She wasn't in her body anymore._

"_Come on Noll!" No sooner had the words left his lips than her arm sprang free and she fell hard against him, knocking him off balance but he managed to stay on his feet. _

_Gene had no such bulwark. He hit the floor with a loud thud and jolted as if electrocuted, body tense, fingers clenching and unclenching around nothing. Noll was half-hysterical, cradling his head to keep him from slamming it against the floor._

"_Lin, what's happening?" he asked desperately, but he ignored his student, looking between the two unconscious children in frustration. He was sixteen for fuck's sake. There was only so much he was prepared for._

"_Calm down." He heard his own voice as if through a tunnel, soft and useless and _fuck_ they needed to wake up. "Try talking to him."_

_Evie's eyes had slid shut, her breath even. He slapped her already bruised cheek with force than he probably should've, but he found he didn't care as long as she woke up. If she woke up, then Gene would be okay too. _

_She groaned, twisting her head away from him. "That's it Evie. Wake up."_

"_Gene, it's me, it's Noll. Wake up. It's okay now, just wake up," he heard Noll whispering to his finally still brother. _

"_Koujo?" she managed, struggling in his arms before he realized she wanted to sit up. He helped her, even let her lean against his chest when she lost her balance. Relief flooded every vein in his body until he wrapped his arms around her absentmindedly. He needed the comfort. She was okay. They were okay._

_He glanced at his student to be sure, and found both boys sprawled on the floor, with matching, bewildered smiles, looking distinctly shell-shocked. Gene rubbed at his temples and let his smile turn rueful._

"_Well that was a dumb idea."_

_Lin didn't think a 'no kidding' would suffice._

* * *

Yay for Bou-san the Unfortunate One! I like the idea of Mai being a morning person only after seven. Before that, don't mess with her. Also, yay for Lin getting laid. And yay for Naru sort of not being a dense jackass.

The holding up a help me sign to the window is a shout out to Malindorie, who wrote a beautiful story called the Transfer. I highly recommend it. Especially if you're feeling particularly LinxMadoka deprived.

Just a note on the orphanage thing: I know its cliche, but to me, there is nothing on this earth that is even as remotely creepy as children. They just freak me out. If you noticed the little jab at myself for going with that plot line, props to you!

Thanks for the reviews! It's really helping me keep on track with this story and boosting my ego (though I'm not sure how much help I need there). You guys are wonderful, I hope you know that.


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